


Protection Racket

by Quinara



Category: EastEnders
Genre: M/M, bobby and the hockey stick, who killed lucy beale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-04
Updated: 2016-06-04
Packaged: 2018-07-12 06:38:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,481
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7089286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quinara/pseuds/Quinara
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Goes slightly AU after Ben has his row with Stacey in the Vic (24/5/16).  After hearing Bobby's confession, Marsden finds a reason to talk to Ben again.  Paul's just trying to figure out what the hell is going on.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I started this last week, but wasn't happy with some parts so ended up needing to let it rest for a while. Thanks to all the people who left kudos on my other fic, which encouraged me not to let this fester on my hard drive.
> 
> In chapter 3, you may notice that I messed with the geography a bit to put Walford Police Station a reasonable distance from the Square. Everything I can find suggests the station's connected to the rest of the set, but it seems ridiculous that characters always drive there (and worry about driving there) if it's only two minutes away, so let's assume it's at least half an hour's walk...

After Ben had had his go at Stacey, Paul at least managed to get him out of the pub. The problem was, with the pair of them distracted, they didn’t stop on the pavement but stumbled on towards the curb.

With a judder, then, they were standing in the road, and Ben was free from Paul’s guiding arm once more.

“I can’t do this,” he said abruptly, like the words were exploding out of him. He was glaring off into the distance over Paul’s head, and his jaw was set in anger. “I can’t do any of this.”

“Can’t do what?” Paul asked, not sure what to do with his hands.

It had been a horrible afternoon, and he was still mostly trying to work out how to engage with it. Ben, it seemed, had the same problem. For a few moments, he was silent, before his head turned and he was looking Paul in the eye. “This – stuff,” he said, like he didn’t know how to explain. "I mean,” he continued, gesturing into the air, “Gran’s just died.” The plan, of course, had been that they weren’t going to talk about that today, but clearly that had gone out of the window. “My dad’s in bits and now _Bobby_ …”

Again, Ben looked away, so it was up to Paul to reach out and squeeze his elbow. “Bobby what?” he asked, because it was a hell of a thing to say – but nothing would be right until one of them said it.

And yet, of course, Ben was pulling his arm away and shaking his head, retreating. “I can’t get you involved,” he said, crossing his arms as a car trundled out of one of the side streets, heading to the other side of the square.

If he were completely honest, Paul didn’t want to be involved either. He’d felt like a coward earlier, staying in the pub after Ben had sprinted off with the Beales – but they’d been gone so quickly. All of it had happened more quickly than Paul could react, and after the moment had passed it hadn’t seemed right to intrude.

It was true enough – or at least his nan had implied it – that Paul hadn’t really thought about what getting involved with Phil Mitchell’s family might mean, but Paul didn’t think he really had a problem with their past. Yeah, they were a complete mess, but somehow he couldn’t help but think they had their hearts in the right place. It was something else about the Beales. They seemed so – organised – that the idea they were _also_ …

“I just can’t go back inside…” Ben interrupted Paul’s thoughts, the words coming out of him with a sigh. He covered his face and wearily rubbed his fingers into his forehead.

For a moment, watching him, Paul thought he was talking about the pub.

_Oh._

Without warning, Ben dropped his hands and confessed, “It feels like it’s been too long, you know? I’ve been out too long and now bad things are happening.”

_Oh, Ben…_ “You’re getting yourself worked up,” Paul told him, taking a hand in his. The gravel was crunchy underneath his feet. “You ain’t gonna go back to prison,” he tried to be convincing. “You ain’t going anywhere.”

“I ain’t even done nothing,” Ben agreed with him, as though they were arguing with someone else.

“No,” Paul confirmed. “I mean,” he pointed out, “you said you’d book the cinema last week and all.”

It was a stupid thing to say, but – after the second or so it took for the message to get through – it still made his boyfriend laugh.

For a moment, the spark came back to his eyes and he was almost grinning. Then, far too quickly, the clouds swept back in: he smiled sadly, squeezing their joined hands. “If I can give you anything,” he said seriously, before he let go, “it’s freedom from all of this.”

Then he was walking away. Just like before, Paul wasn’t quite sure he had it in him to follow.

And yet, because he couldn’t keep his mouth shut, there was one thing he had to ask. “Did you know before today?”

Ben paused in the road, turning back like he didn’t really want to keep walking. He didn’t have to ask what Paul was talking about, of course. Really, given the look of hopeless uncertainty on his face, he didn’t need to answer either. He covered his mouth with his hand, like he couldn’t bear to speak the evil he was thinking, but eventually, with a look like he was begging for mercy, he explained. “Nah,” he said. And then too many more words escaped him: “But it looks like the rest of them did. Look –“ he cut into himself. “I’ll see you later, yeah? I gotta go… I gotta go think.”

And then he was pulling himself away to who knew where, leaving Paul to watch after him.

It probably would have been appropriately tragic, then, for Paul to do nothing but watch helplessly – but instead he pulled out his phone, his hand working automatically. Scrolling through his contacts, it was only when he found the name he wanted that he realised what he was looking for.

Jay.

‘Hey,’ Paul texted, even as Ben disappeared. ‘Something Mitchell is happening. Ben needs to chat, but he won’t talk. Can you help?’

* * *

It was a few hours before he got a reply. He’d headed back in to the wedding; tried to smooth things over with Stacey and got a very clear brush off for his trouble, but Louise and Kyle had been happy enough to have him back at the table. It seemed Louise was in a spat with her friend Bex, which was something of a distraction.

The wedding reception, which had shown a surprising will to live on after everything, was finally winding down when Paul’s phone beeped and there was a message from Mr Brown.

_Meet you at the park_ , he’d written. _Now?_

Looking around at a party of people who didn’t especially want him there – and his Nan and Granddad, who were stewing about something on the other side of the room – Paul decided that now seemed like as good a time as any. ’10 mins,’ he wrote, before he began making his excuses.

When he arrived at the park, Jay was sitting alone at one of the picnic tables. He looked worn out, but had something of his old cockiness about him – like he was the only sensible bloke in a room full of idiots. Paul could admire it in him, if only because most of the time it was true. He liked to think he could project the same thing himself if the situation called for it.

“First things first,” Jay said as Paul wandered over. “Don’t ever write a message saying something ‘Mitchell’ is going down.” He sounded annoyed, but Paul had a feeling it was all perfunctory. “All I can see is you sitting down the station, being told that you wrote it and getting asked what it means. There ain’t no Mitchell reputation, all right? Not as far as your phone’s concerned.”

“Got it,” Paul replied, nodding and wondering if this was going to be the first blunder of many. There were probably more serious ones, weren’t there?

What the hell was he getting himself into?

Apparently some of his concern showed on his face, because Jay took pity on him, sitting down at the picnic bench like it was a show of goodwill. “What is this all about, anyway?” he asked, and it was almost like he was being friendly. “I’ve had my own Mitchell thing this afternoon, you know.”

Something _else_? Shaking his head, Paul joined Jay at the table and decided he didn’t want to know. What he had was hard enough to explain. “Yeah,” he began, wondering what he was going to say. He put his hands in his lap and crossed one leg over the other – not at all defensively… “So, Bobby Beale was in the Vic earlier.”

“Bobby…?” Jay did a double take, squinting in the sun. “All right,” he eventually accepted. “And?”

“He interrupted Martin and Stacey’s wedding reception. Ian was doing a speech.” The sun was shining, the Vic was far away, and it all seemed a little surreal now. If there was a way of building up to what had happened, Paul really didn’t know what it was. “He had this hockey stick, right?” he continued, swinging his free foot. Jay was clearly getting impatient, but it took a moment to find the words. “And he told Ian – well, announced it to the pub, really – that he’d, er…” Paul scratched his head. “Well, what he said was that he’d killed his mum.”

Jay just stared at him, his mouth as round as his eyes. “What?” he asked, like hadn’t heard. “You didn’t just say –”

“Yeah…” Paul interrupted, because he really needed to finish the story. “He, er, he said he’d killed her just like he’d killed Lucy.”

Whatever certainty Jay had managed to gather immediately vanished. All around them, the park was filled with chatter and the early evening birdsong, but at their table there was silence. Jay slumped over his elbows, leaning on the table and holding on to his temples. “Nah,” he said, shaking his head. “You ain’t…”

Spontaneously, then, in a way that made Paul jump, Jay leaned back and was scrabbling through his pockets to bring out his phone. One of his knees was jiggling, making the whole bench shake slightly as he scrolled between menus. For a moment, Paul wondered if he was trying to find some sort of update about all of this; if he was wondering whether it had hit the news. Then he was typing something and Paul had a feeling it was to Ben – before he seemed to remember what traitors phones could be and threw the thing down on the table.

“What the hell is going on?” Jay demanded after this was all over, his voice thick. “You know… You know he could’ve gone down for Lucy, Ben?” Who this rant was aimed at, Paul didn’t know, but he certainly didn’t know how to respond. “They were all over him,” Jay insisted. “Phil and that lot, they was thinking he’d done it. And Jane!” He changed topics seamlessly. “Is she even alive or what?”

“Yeah – _yeah_ ,” Paul replied without thinking, though he wasn’t actually certain. “They went to the hospital. What’re you talking about with Ben?” he switched the topic back. Suddenly the prison talk made a little more sense.

Jay tutted, waving his hand at him. He was clearly thinking this through a lot quicker than Paul was. “Wasn’t you and him carrying on back then,” he accused, like this was old history Paul was supposed to know. “Don’t you remember him getting nicked? It was only last summer.”

It really was taking Paul longer to catch up than it should have done. “Nah,” he explained blankly. “Back then we weren’t…” Although, hang on; now that he thought about it…

“Phil grassed him up,” Jay went back to ranting. “Round seventeen of him…” He shook his head. “You tell me,” he demanded, “did he know?”

“Who?” Paul asked, trying to fit together whatever jigsaw it was Jay was making.

Jay, after all, looked more than impatient about how slow he was being. “ _Phil_ ,” he spat.

“I…” Paul struggled to find the words. “I dunno,” he said shaking his head. “So you think it’s true, then?”

“What?” Jay was fuming, back to scrolling through his phone.

“Lucy,” Paul said.

Of course, Jay didn’t even bother to answer that, just shook his head. “They knew about it,” he insisted, cynically, dropping the phone one more to glare across the table. “One of them knew about it. A kid does something like that and it stays quiet…” He rubbed a hand across his face – one of Ben’s mannerisms that Paul hadn’t realised until that moment they shared. “Someone knew about it and it would not surprise me…” The end of the sentence hung in the air, but Jay snorted rather than complete it. “I mean,” he added damningly, “it ain’t like he ain’t done it before…”

At that moment, before Paul could have any thoughts at all, Jay’s phone pinged with one received message.

Both of them stared at it.

It took a few moments for calm to return, but then, at the same time it seemed that thoughts returned to Paul’s head, Jay was picking up the device from the table.

Really, Paul didn’t know what to make of all of this. It was all water under the bridge, wasn’t it, even if Phil had known about Bobby? Probably not for Ben, of course – nor for Jay either, it seemed like. Yeah, it would be proof of a betrayal, even before everything had got bad and Phil had discovered…

But then, maybe it wasn’t water under the bridge. This was serious, wasn’t it? Paul had no idea what prison was like – not really – but from the look on Ben and Jay’s faces when they talked about it, it was like sending your own family to die.

How could anyone do that on purpose?

Speak of the devil, though, the text Jay had received turned out to absolutely be from Ben: instead of replying, Jay was looking around, then beckoning over to the food hut. Paul turned to look over his shoulder and there was one surly looking Mitchell, ambling reluctantly over to them with his hands in his pockets.

“We’re leaving Paul out of this,” was what Ben said as he arrived, abrupt and sounding miserable as anything.

He was standing on Paul’s side of the bench when he said it, like he intended to offer his message and then be off.

Whatever was happening, in the end, Paul didn’t think that was particularly on. “Well, hello to you too,” he declared, trying to lighten the mood as he dragged on his boyfriend’s arm. “Come on, Ben; sit down.”

“I ain’t told him nothing,” Jay offered his own reply, holding up his hands like this argument had already been started. “He’s the one telling me…” He demanded, “Is it true?”

Ben looked at Paul, a frown across his forehead, then back at Jay before slowly, finally, he nodded.

That made them all serious again. The silence filled the air between them.

“Did Phil know?” Jay ultimately asked, more calmly than he had before. It was as though he could only relax now he knew he was actually going to get some answers.

There was a cold breeze signalling the night, just moving in, and Paul took that as an excuse to rub Ben’s upper arm. He was still silent, shaking his head, but he shuffled on the bench to move a little closer. “No,” he said eventually, his voice dull. “At least not… It was more recent or something.”

“But?” Jay asked, and it was as though they were both thinking on the same lines – lines Paul was only just getting to grips with.

Again, Ben looked at Paul before he answered, as though this was the last thing he wanted to say. All the same, it was there in his face, how much this was the moment when Ben needed him. And what was Paul if not a sucker for that look?

“Well,” Ben explained to Jay, his voice even nonetheless, “he had to find out from somewhere, didn’t he? And it’s not like Dad and _Bobby_ spend their Fridays sharing little chats down the pub.” He snorted. “Jane and Ian always said they were gonna get rid of Lucy’s things, didn’t they? But…”

“I told you, didn’t I?” Jay shot back at him, without much real heat. “I told you it was a stupid idea… They could’ve dropped you right in it, any time. The pair of us.”

“Well, that’s just it, Jay!” Ben declared, his voice breaking a little. “They must’ve done. How else did Dad get them to hand in to Marsden?”

“Ian and – Jane?” Paul couldn’t help but interrupt, not able to believe it. It was one thing to cover for your son killing your daughter – _Although, really…_ – but it was another thing entirely to frame someone else to get out of it.

Ben said nothing, just slumping towards Paul like he was sick of sitting up on his own.

In the end, Paul didn’t know what to think, but it seemed that Jay had got the perfect measure of the situation. “So after all of this, it’s, what? Your job to cover for their psycho kid?”

“He’s not a –” Ben seemed to reply automatically, squeezing his eyes shut. “He’s a child. They do stupid things. React in stupid ways. Getting sent down…” Ben continued, like he was certain. “It ain’t gonna help him.”

“Yeah, but you don’t know that,” Jay replied before Paul could, bouldering on even as it seemed like Ben was going to object. “You don’t know what’s going on inside that kid’s head. You and me and –” He glanced at Paul, and for a moment Paul was sure that he was glad to have only appeared on the scene a year ago. “All of us, we know what you’re about. Phil could figure it out as well if he tried. But some of those kids out there,” Jay insisted, waving off into the distance, “they _are_ psychos. Think of all them psychos you meet; they gotta come from somewhere.”

“No,” Ben refused to accept it, shaking his head as he sat up straighter. “He’s my nephew and it’s not like Ian…” He exhaled one short breath. “He can’t have known what he was doing.”

“And Jane would agree with that, would she?” was Jay’s patient reply. “When she gets back from wherever she is? From the hospital? What was it he did to her, anyway, with that hockey stick?”

Leaning his elbows on the picnic table, then, Ben looked nothing but drawn and hard and empty. For a moment he said nothing, as though he couldn’t believe Jay was asking this. Then, just for a moment, he put his face in his hands, hunching his shoulders.

Paul looked at Jay, not sure what to do. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know what had happened to Jane, but he kept thinking… With a quirk of his eyebrows, Jay was telling him to stay quiet, so Paul kept schtum. He drew his jacket more tightly around him.

Eventually, Ben raised his head, his face pale, and with a glance at Paul he spoke calmly. That was what was actually horrific. “There was this pool of blood,” he told Jay, like he could still see it in front of him. “It was coming from the back of her head and it _smelled_ …”

He took a moment, looking up to the darkening sky. No one said anything.

“And the paramedic,” Ben finally continued, his voice even. “He said she had spinal injuries. _Spinal injuries._ And that weren’t from how she fell. None of it was from how she fell.” For some reason, this seemed important. “When he went for her – it must’ve been from behind. And he didn’t just hit her once, you know? He must’ve hit her again, and again… He didn’t stop, bruv,” he added, as though Jay would understand exactly why this made no sense. “Why didn’t he stop?”

"Is someone with her, Jane?” Paul asked immediately, before the images could settle in his head. It was a stupid question – of course someone would be with her; she was at the hospital – but for some reason, while he couldn’t imagine the pain, all he could imagine was the loneliness of realising that someone you loved had done that to you. Your own _child_ …

Jay was shaking his head, looking off as though he wished he could run away from all of this, out into the grass where some keen beans were still playing Frisbee.

“And that’s not even all of it,” Ben continued, sounding like his thoughts were running away with him. “There’s Max to think about, and how he went down – and Dad –” He cut himself off then, turning to Paul with a look in his eyes like he wanted to apologise. But then he was just shaking his head and frowning back at Jay.

“What you on about; Max?” Jay said, sounding as confused as Paul felt. “He’ll get out, won’t he? It’ll be the only good thing to come out of this.” He added as an afterthought, “He always said he didn’t do it...”

“You don’t understand.” Ben was still serious.

They were almost getting somewhere, it seemed like to Paul – down past the horror of the afternoon to the crux of the reason Ben was feeling so conflicted about it. This was the moment to make everything clear –

But naturally that wasn’t what happened. Instead, as the quiet returned, Jay suddenly shifted on his bench to look up over the back of Paul and Ben’s heads, clenching his hand on the table slats.

When Paul looked around, there was a woman who looked distinctly out of place coming around the side of the food hut. She had curly blondish hair and was dressed in a dumpy grey trouser suit. Ben stiffened at the sight of her, distance slipping between him and Paul.

“Ben Mitchell,” she called over, smiling without any feeling as she approached them on the picnic bench. “I want a word with you.”

.


	2. Chapter 2

“DCI Marsden,” Ben greeted the woman, not getting up. “Always a pleasure.”

It was both fascinating and a bit depressing to watch a Ben Mitchell move into his natural habitat. His face hardened and his hands somehow seemed to go all meaty, clenching slightly where they were resting on the table slats. His voice had collapsed into the obstinate drawl that Paul was pretty certain he actually despised, and there was a smirk on his face that somehow set off the dead look in his eyes. He became about as attractive as a pissed-on lamppost.

The woman, Marsden, didn’t seem perturbed in the least. “I was wondering if you might be willing to help me?” she asked, still smiling a bland, insincere smile. She nodded towards the space at the bench beside Jay. “Do you mind if I sit down?”

Jay shuffled over without a word, his own expression hard and suspicious. Again, Marsden seemed to take this as completely _de rigueur_ , pulling out her notebook as she eased herself down.

Always out of place, of course, Paul was feeling antsy. It wasn’t that he had any particular problem with the police. Some mates of his in school had had stories, but mostly he’d tried to stay of their way.

“What’s this about?” Paul asked, because he could never keep his mouth shut, and certainly couldn’t when he was nervous. Ben kicked him under the table, which he tried not to find comforting. “I mean…” he trailed off, not sure how to take the question back.

Marsden smiled, because this was apparently her default response. Though if Paul had felt the bench move with Ben’s kick, then she had to have done as well. “A woman was violently assaulted in her home,” she explained, as though none of them were taking it seriously enough. “We’re trying to gather all the available facts. And you are?”

“Forget about him,” Ben interrupted, somehow sounding like he was impatient more than anything else.

It took a physical effort for Paul to say nothing, but he tried to look harmless as Marsden looked back to Ben.

“Fine,” she said, somehow ignoring the fear that was probably all over Paul’s expression. She leaned forward, taking up all the room Jay was giving her like this was late night at the saloon. “Jane Beale,” she shot at Ben, ignoring her notebook. “I have officers on the ground saying you were one of the ones who found her.”

“And?” Ben replied, cool as ice.

Some part of Paul that was actually disconnected from his body thought this whole scene was hilarious; he wanted to laugh. The rest of him did not.

“Well…” Marsden was shrugging. “We’ve been here before, Ben, haven’t we?” She continued, “A woman hurt in her home; a crowd coming by after hearing the news… And once again, there’s you tagging along despite being more than a little surplus to requirements.”

“Now, hang about,” Jay interrupted this time, bristling at whatever suggestion Marsden was making. Paul was bristling too, but he didn’t quite know why. “You are _not_ saying –”

“ _Jay_ ,” Ben hissed at him.

“– _Bobby_ was the one who…”

“Ah,” Marsden said, even as Jay trailed off, realising that he’d been caught in the detective’s trap. Whatever that was. “So we do know something about it.”

“Jay wasn’t there,” Ben replied stiffly. There were prickles on the back of Paul’s neck. “He don’t know what he’s talking about.”

“But you do, don’t you, Ben?” Marsden replied, almost sweetly. “So why don’t we start there. What made you go over to the Beales this afternoon?”

For a few seconds, Ben said nothing. Paul watched as he clenched his jaw, then finally replied, “It was Martin and Stacey’s wedding reception. Jane was supposed to be getting the cake.”

“And you’re, what?” Marsden shot back, clearly disbelieving. “Martin Fowler’s cake monitor? He’s hardly a close relative.” Suddenly, somehow, she seemed to be on a roll. “No,” she confirmed, looking at Paul like he was supposed to agree. “It wasn’t the cake you were worried about, was it?” she asked Ben. “You see, that seems strange to me. Jane Beale is a busy woman, isn’t she? Working mother; several catering businesses. So busy she forgot the cake in the first place. So why did she need five people to find out what was holding her up?”

The cogs were clearly whirring in Ben’s head. He frowned at the table, then looked up before saying, “I don’t want to talk about this no more.”

Marsden sighed, even as Paul wondered whether you were really allowed to say that to the police. “Ben Mitchell,” she said, with professional disdain, right at the moment some silent klaxons started jangling somewhere just beyond Paul’s awareness, “where were you between the hours of 12 midday and two-thirty PM, this afternoon, Saturday the twenty-first of May, 2016?”

“This is ridiculous…” Jay muttered, shaking his head as Ben stared daggers at the woman. The klaxons were sending prickles down Paul’s fingers. He didn’t know why, but everything about this felt sinister, and he didn’t like it. He didn’t like it at all. They couldn’t possibly pin any of this on Ben, could they? There was no way. He couldn’t go back to prison – not for this. It wasn’t fair; it wasn’t…

“I was in the pub,” was what Ben himself said, eventually. He sounded oddly professional too. In control. “The Queen Victoria, Albert Square.”

Marsden nodded, seriously, as though this was an actual line of enquiry she was pursuing. “And are there witnesses who can confirm this?”

“Plenty,” Ben confirmed immediately, with a sarcastic grin.

“Would you care to provide any details?” The woman poised her pen above the notebook paper.

“Look, he was with me the whole time, wasn’t he?” Paul then found himself saying, without thinking about it, the words producing themselves. Even as he started speaking, he realised it wasn’t probably what he was supposed to do, but nonetheless he didn’t see how he could do anything else. “Ask anyone you like. You can, you know? There was a whole table of us – we got there at… Well, I dunno exactly, but –”

“ _Paul…_ ” Ben muttered under his breath, between his teeth. The _shut up_ didn’t need to be spoken.

“Yes,” Marsden agreed, though Paul couldn’t be sure about what. She was looking at him again, and the expression on her face was not kind. “I don’t believe we’ve met. Can I take your name, please?”

Feeling odd about introducing himself to the police, Paul found himself sitting up a little straighter as he told her, “Paul Coker.” The detective asked for his address, so he gave her that as well. She wrote it down in her little black book.

“53A Turpin Road,” she finished reciting, before looking up at him again. Something like a snort passed through her nose, as though the address meant something, and then she was turning back to her suspect. “Well, you’ve done well for yourself there, Ben,” she said, and Paul realised that, no, it wasn’t the address she was interested in. “Finally decided to stand up to Daddy Mitchell, did we? How is he taking it?” Ben was seething, while Paul was momentarily stunned. “You know, I think I like him more than what’s-her-name, but… Have you told him all the things you’ve done? He seems like a nice lad; what d’you think he’ll say when he finds out?”

“Er,” Paul interrupted, finally finding his voice again in amongst everything else. He wasn’t actually sure if he could be angrier than he was at that moment. “Are you allowed to talk to him like this?”

“It don’t matter,” Ben said before Marsden could reply. He was swinging himself free of the picnic bench, and with a glance at Jay Paul was happy to follow. “I don’t have to talk to her, and I ain’t gonna.” His voice was still hard and his body was still stiff, and Paul felt ridiculous for being unable to keep his own hands from shaking.

“I should remind you, Ben,” the detective stopped him short, her voice still even and sardonic. “You’re a key witness in a case that, with every second that we’re standing here, is moving one step closer to becoming a murder enquiry.” None of them moved, and Paul noticed as Jay covered his face once again. “When the time comes, you won’t be able to decide whether or not you want to talk to me, and your obstructive behaviour here will be noted. You also forget,” she added, as though she knew all of them knew, “that I have been hearing some very interesting things today about the Lucy Beale case, in which you were and may yet again become one of our primary suspects. Now either,” she added, before any of them had time to think, “today’s events have set your understanding about her death into something of a different light, in which case we need to talk, or they haven’t, in which case I will be coming to knock on that door I so dearly love to knock on when I have enough to charge you with perverting the course of justice. You also forget,” she finished, with a final barbed warning, “we have a man in prison who might well ask for compensation, and the CPS don’t take kindly to being told they’ve made a mistake.”

Paul was struggling to take it all in, and Jay it seemed was also frozen. Somewhere inside Ben, Paul imagined, there was a part of him that was just as scared. There had to be. At that moment, however, with a steely expression that was making more sense the more Paul recognised it, Ben looked like he was having no reaction at all. “I ain’t saying nothing,” he told the detective, taking two steps towards Marsden with his hands by his side. “Not to you. Not till we go down the station and I get to call my brief.”

As smooth as an oil slick, Marsden was all smiles again as she replied, “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

* * *

It was all Paul could do to watch as Ben climbed into the back of Marsden’s silver detective’s car. Jay was right there with him, standing at the park gates, but neither of them spoke. Paul wondered if Jay felt as powerless as he did – or else as angry, which he still was.

“So what do we do now?” Paul asked, every part of him shaking. “Do we go after him or what?”

Jay shook his head, looking hopeless. “It could be hours,” he said, sounding frustrated. “It ain’t like he’s in hospital; you won’t be able to see a blink of him till they’re done.”

“But why didn’t he want to talk to her here?” Paul insisted, looking up to the lavender blue sky and all the people heading home. “He’s making himself look like he’s done something.”

Yet again – and it was starting to annoy Paul now – Jay wiped a hand across his face. “That’s the problem, innit?” he said, sounding just as annoyed. “Marsden already thinks he’s guilty of all sorts of stuff. He’s gotta make sure he don’t trip himself up.”

Paul just shook his head, unable to believe that this was how it all worked. There was nothing to connect Ben to Jane, surely? No way of making it mean anything.

His phone beeped in his pocket, then, and Paul hastily dragged it out into his clumsy fingers. The message was from Ben.

_I’ll be alright._

That was what it said, but Paul couldn’t help but feel like it meant the opposite. He didn’t know how to reply, nor what to say, and another message appeared while he was thinking.

_Go home._

There were endless conversations between him and Ben in their messaging histories. Presumably the police could be all over that if they wanted to. Paul didn’t know what to text; whether there was anything he could give away that wasn’t already there. In the end he just wrote what his thumbs wanted to. ‘Love you.’

There was no reply, but he didn’t expect there to be, not with whoever this Marsden woman was still in the car. He realised that just as well as Ben likely realised there was no way Paul was going home.

“Come on,” Paul said to Jay, thinking about what Ben had said earlier, and the reason why he wasn’t just telling the story straight out. “We’ve got someone to see.”

* * *

Quite what Paul thought he was doing, marching up to Ronnie Mitchell’s house and its bright pink front door, well, he didn’t know. He didn’t even know for certain that Phil would be there. The day after the man’s mother had died and the evening that his son was answering questions at the police station was almost certainly not a good time for a conversation between the two of them, but there weren’t too many other options.

It didn’t seem as though Jay agreed, though, because he was dragging on Paul’s arm even after the bell had rung. “You ain’t going in there,” Jay said. “Ben don’t want you involved.”

“Yeah, well,” Paul replied, thinking he was probably supposed to come back with some cliché about how he was already involved. The thing was that he wasn’t, and if he was thinking sensibly he shouldn’t let himself become so, but he wasn’t sure he actually cared. “Tough.”

Jay groaned, but he didn’t actually sound as though he thought this was the wrong decision. They had a thing for loyalty, the Mitchells, Paul remembered. He did as well. It was the same with being slightly stupid about things. _Ben, you idiot, if you don’t come back…_

When Phil answered the door, he wasn’t looking like he was particularly in the mood for visitors. He was screwing his face up, looking between Paul and Jay like he couldn’t decide which of them he was less happy to see. “What d’you want?” he demanded.

“They’ve taken Ben down the police station,” Paul said before he had a chance to think about it, barrelling past Phil and into the house with some sort of skill he didn’t know he had. Jay came in behind him and then they were both standing there in the hallway, while Phil looked back with his hand still on the latch, pink and nonplussed. “And as far as I can make out, it’s your fault.”

“Get out of my house,” was all Phil said, nodding towards the open door. He sounded threatening, but the problem was that Paul had heard it all before. The wallpaper behind Phil made him look like a Tumblr meme, and mostly emphasised that this wasn’t even his own home.

“He could’ve just told them, you know?” Paul pressed, knowing there was a weakness in Phil somewhere and certain, for some reason, that he could find it. “He could’ve just explained what happened in the pub – what Bobby said and what happened next. But he didn’t, and now they’re dragging up all sorts of things about Lucy Beale and have got Ben fixed in their sights.” For some reason he was pointing at his own chest, acting aggressive. “And I think it’s something to do with you.”

“Go before I make you leave, all right?” Phil insisted, not without menace. He nodded to Jay over Paul’s shoulder. “I don’t need a nonce and some… _You_ , telling me how to run my affairs.”

Paul just shook his head, unable to believe the man thought that tactic was going to work.

“It’s Marsden,” Jay said quietly, as though the slur was enough to shock him into talking.

This seemed to have some impact on Phil, because he leaned more heavily on the door, looking away from them for a moment.

“Phil…!” Their conversation was interrupted then, by the sound of the kitchen door and Sharon’s voice as she shoes came clicking in from outside. “I’ve just had a call from Ritchie,” she was saying, sounding concerned, before she came to a stop by the stairs, taking in the sight of Paul and Jay. “Oh,” she said, not sounding particularly worried anymore – more shifty. “I suppose you’ve already heard.”

Behind him, Paul registered it as Phil sighed and began shutting the door, but he was distracted by the hot feeling of irritation that rose up inside him. It made him bite out at Sharon, “Is that all you can say?”

“Look, I know this is frightening,” Sharon said back him, now suddenly all smiles as though they were friends. She was standing in the kitschy hallway like she belonged there, and it annoyed Paul for a moment how out of place he felt himself. “But it’s routine,” she tried to soothe him. “Ben’ll be back later; I promise you, he will.”

“We _were_ there, Sharon,” Jay said, while Paul was lost for words. Thankfully Jay sounded almost as annoyed as Paul felt. “We know this ain’t only about Jane no more.”

“And she’s doing fine, by the way, thank you for asking,” Sharon shot back a reprimand.

Jay just screwed his face up, not taking it. “Fine?” he repeated. _Bless you, Jay._ “Fine? Her son hit her in the back of the head with a hockey stick. She ain’t _fine_.”

“Yes, well…” Sharon replied, discomforted, before raising her head like she was about to sing an aria and looking over their heads to Phil.

Paul turned, waiting.

With his hands on his hips and his face still pink, it didn’t seem like Phil was much in the mood for prevaricating. “He didn’t know what he was doing, all right?” he said shortly, like that was supposed to make them believe him. “He’s Ben’s nephew. He’s my…” Clearly Phil had never tried to work this out before. “Something. Things got out of hand and now he’s saying things that ain’t –”

“Sorry; you’ll have to forgive me, here…” Paul interrupted him, not willing to keep listening to the man spouting stuff he clearly didn’t believe was true. “I’m confused,” he said. “Are we talking about Jane Beale or this girl Lucy?” The old man was so much like Ben, the way he was winding Paul up; the way his face screwed itself up. Maybe Paul was just seeing what he wanted to see, but he could only hope this man might also listen to reason sometimes.

It certainly seemed like he shared the gene that killed off his ability to reply when his rubbish was called out straight.

“Look, Phil’s right,” Sharon nonetheless picked up the slack, covering Phil’s silence with her own wavering protestations. “Bobby’s just a little boy and the most important thing right now is –”

“Are you even listening to yourself?” Paul shouted at her, not sure what to do with all the feelings he had or even what he was really angry about anymore. Maybe it was all just fear; he didn’t know. He kept talking, anyway, “Because I know you don’t think protecting an out-of-control child is more important than looking out for his dead sister and his dying mum, making sure they didn’t get hurt just so other people can feel it later. Your son,” he said, reeling on Phil again, “is going through hell right now because you’ve got him protecting someone who’s done as much if not more than he ever has, and _why_ are you doing it?”

Somewhere inside of him, Paul realised that on a normal day Phil wouldn’t be letting him get away with this. The man was tired, grieving still for his mother, and he probably wanted nothing more than to curl up and go to sleep. He was still leaning against the door, pensive and sallow and heavy and staring at Paul, but he wasn’t saying anything.

“I know it ain’t for Bobby Beale,” Paul said more calmly, trying to be reasonable. “And Ben never said who it was.” It seemed like he was getting through to Phil, maybe, somehow, so even as a sigh fell out of him Paul pushed on. “But there’s only one person he does these things for, in the end, and that’s you.” It was true, after all. Ben might tie himself in knots over all sorts, but it was only for Phil that he held those knots together in the long run. Paul was working on him. “I don’t know what it is this time,” he conceded to Phil, hoping to hell the man was listening, “and, to be completely honest with you, I don’t want to know. But you are getting Ben out of this mess or, so help me, _Phil_ –”

“What?” Phil asked, sounding amused to hear his name come out of Paul’s mouth. “What’re you gonna do? Style me hair?”

The house was silent, apart from the distant sound of a clock somewhere and the general road noise of the street. All of it steadily filled Paul’s ears as he reached for something to say, embarrassed and angry and upset about how badly this day had gone. “D’you not ever worry what it does to him, all this?” Paul eventually asked, unable to articulate what he was feeling.

“You ought to be careful what you’re saying about my son,” was Phil’s fairly lacklustre response. His expression was closed off and he growled it; there was a rustle of Sharon moving around – yet none of it felt particularly threatening.

At least not today. “Don’t you worry about me, yeah?” Paul reassured him, and odd feeling of pity for the old man rising in the back of his throat.

Phil grumbled again, but he didn’t say anything.

“She were talking about Hev, Phil,” Jay added eventually, his voice quiet but clear. “Linking things up; putting ‘em together. I dunno what picture she has, but it ain’t pretty.”

Phil nodded, slowly, but he still didn’t say anything.

Sharon seemed to catch something in his expression, though, because she spoke up in a worried voice. “Phil, you can’t…” she began.

But Phil interrupted. “No,” he said, clearly still thinking about something – some solution. He glanced at Paul and Jay in turn, before opening the door behind him and waving them through. “Get out of this house,” he said, almost kindly.

With a glance at Jay, Paul was glad to. He walked by Phil with his jaw clenched, still angry at the man for being a homophobic bastard, in a general way, but otherwise for letting his fear cause everyone so much grief.

.


	3. Chapter 3

After the confrontation at Ronnie’s house, Jay was due back at Billy’s, which left Paul to his own devices.

“Be careful, yeah?” Jay said to him before he left. They shared a hug, because Paul forgot for a moment that Jay wasn’t the sort of bloke who did that. He didn’t seem to mind; it was brief and manly anyway. “And don’t go showing up down the station. They got people coming in and out of there, and…” he trailed off, and Paul wasn’t entire sure what he meant. Possibly it was something about the spectre of men who’d been inside with Ben; possibly it was some concern for Paul’s safety. Jay didn’t finish the thought, anyway, just added, “It ain’t a place for being yourself, all right?”

In the end, Paul wasn’t sure where else he was going to go, but Jay’s words made him dither a bit beforehand.

His nan and granddad were already back at the flat, and seemed relieved to hear him come in. “Oh, Paul,” Nan said, hopping up from the sofa as he walked through the door. “Are you all right? We lost track of you earlier, and there’s been such a to-do with police and these people…”

“Yeah,” Paul replied, trying to reassure her as he paused on his way to his room. “I’m fine; I’m…” Of course, his nan’s worried frown went straight through him, so there was nothing he could do but sigh and say, “A detective took Ben in for questioning. He was one of the ones to find Jane and now they’re fitting up all sorts of…”

“Oh dear,” Pam concluded. Her face fell, but she thankfully seemed less shocked and appalled than Paul thought she might be. “Oh… What a business,” she added, coming over to wrap an arm around Paul’s back. She rubbed his shoulder. “They’ll let him go soon, I’m sure. They’ll get him to tell them what happened and that’ll be all.”

“But that’s just it,” Paul replied, frustrated again by the whole escapade. “Ben doesn’t want to say anything that’ll help them build a case against Bobby.” He didn’t bother trying to explain why, because he still didn’t really know. He didn’t want to talk about it, not really; not when his emotions kept getting in the way.

It was hard, being back at the flat with this all hanging over him. It would be too easy to curl up on the sofa and break down, but he couldn’t. He knew he couldn’t.

“Well…” Pam began, and Paul caught her glancing at Granddad, like they were reading something on his face. The flat was warm this evening, and at that moment it felt more than a little claustrophobic, the chintz all looming from the walls.

Maybe he was thinking too much about prison.

“Sometimes it’s for the best,” Paul heard his nan continue. “Not to say anything.” It wasn’t immediately clear exactly what she was talking about. “Young Bobby’s going to need an awful lot of support,” she explained when Paul looked at her again, “and it won’t help his defence team if the Crown end up with…”

 _This child is ruining lives,_ was all Paul could think. He could see his nan reading it off his face, because she went quiet for a moment, looking back to Les.

“He’s still just a young lad, Paul,” his granddad said eventually, sounding grim. “He’s a victim of his own crimes as much as…” The room went quiet for a moment, with no one quite certain of the truth. “We don’t give up hope in this family, remember?” Les finally insisted. “Not about anyone.”

Paul nodded, because he realised it was true. All of his nan’s projects that he’d met over the years even made him realise it. He had to believe it, if he wasn’t going to think himself an idiot for getting involved with someone like…

“Yeah, well,” he finally said to his nan, who was smiling a nervous grin. “I ain’t gonna be able to sleep, so I thought I’d go and wait till Ben gets out. Only I didn’t want to go like this,” he added, looking down at what he thought was a pretty good outfit, actually. It didn’t seem right, though. “What d’you wear to go down the police station?”

“Oh, Paul,” was his nan’s only response, a worried frown on her face.

* * *

In the end, Paul thought he could look worse. The makeover hadn’t taken that long, really: he’d tied his hair back into a low, bun, dragging the curls flat around his head, which did enough for his face. He hadn’t quite realised how much flannel and shearling he owned, but once he’d got rid of those layers he’d ended up in a swamping grey hoody he usually wore on the plane. It wasn’t much, but he thought it made him look a bit more street.

Part of him couldn’t shake the sneering look on the detective’s face while she taunted Ben about him in the late sunshine. He didn’t think Ben needed any more of that today.

When Paul sat down in the police station lobby, sure enough, no one bothered him. He didn’t text Ben to say he was there, in case it put him off or something, but he spent a good hour browsing Buzzfeed. It almost made him want to read the news more often.

It wasn’t an especially quiet night, presumably for being a Saturday. At times, Paul wondered if he was supposed to be waiting there, but there were two women who weren’t moving any quicker than he was, so he assumed it wasn’t illegal to sit. One of them kept reapplying her lipgloss, like it was a tic, and checking her nails for chips. The other one was weeping silently, clutching her bag on her knees and never quite shedding tears, just blinking them away into her raccoon eyes and sniffing. No one paid her any mind, and Paul wondered what would be said if he offered her a hug.

That probably wasn’t in character. He went back to his phone.

Eventually, it all paid off. Paul had stopped looking up every time the door opened after about half an hour, but not long after midnight he heard the now somehow familiar voice of DCI Marsden, insincerely professional. “Do stay in touch, won’t you?” she was calling through a swinging door.

That left a woman who was presumably Ritchie the lawyer smiling with equal insincerity, while Ben, who was looking tired, waved Marsden turrah. “She can’t make any of that stuff stick, can she?” he growled at Ritchie as the door fell closed, completely oblivious to Paul, who was only sitting a couple of metres away. He didn’t sound like himself – and Paul wondered if even Marsden believed the act. “Jay already got done for the phone and that; they can’t want to take his conviction back and all.”

“It’s a fantasy,” Ritchie was reassuring him, even as cold started spreading through Paul’s veins. Whatever Phil was going to do, he clearly hadn’t done it yet, and this stuff was going to churn on. “She knows her investigation’s a joke and needs a solution that’s even more convincing to the CPS than Max Branning. You’re about the only one she’s got anything on whose profile she could make fit with Bobby’s story.”

“Well, cheers, Ritchie,” Ben grumbled, pulling out his phone and dropping his head. “That’s real reassuring.”

“Don’t fret about it,” Ritchie finished their conversation. “She’s grasping at straws and you gave her nothing to move forward with. You did well.”

Hell, Paul thought. Was the bent lawyer a mother figure to him too? How many did a boy need?

“Do you need a lift back to the Square?” the woman added, proving it.

“Nah, you’re all right,” Ben replied, putting his phone away with something that looked a little like disappointment. “Think I could use the walk.”

“OK, then” Ritchie replied, and walked away with just a nod at Ben and not even a glance in Paul’s direction.

Clearly thinking he was on his own, Ben took a moment after she left to shut his eyes to breathe a breath out of his nose. Holding himself together, he put his hands in his pockets, and started to leave, passing by the bank of chairs Paul was sitting on.

Not quite sure how to play it, Paul stuck his leg out just so that Ben could walk into it. “Oi, watch it,” Ben immediately reacted, his voice quick and loud and hard and he turned on his feet to lean into Paul’s space. A frisson ran through the room, and the officer at the desk paused.

Now, Paul had been threatened by Ben before: the first day he’d arrived in Walford, in fact. A few times since. He’d been younger then, Ben, and stewing in homoerotic frustration – or at least that was how Paul remembered it. Now there was none of that – not much for him to read and nothing, Paul would bet, that any straight could figure out.

It was a bit weird to see. “A’ight,” Paul said anyway, as their eyes met, and he had enough anxiety and enough adrenaline that he didn’t even feel the urge to corpse.

It took Ben a moment. In the instant that he recognised who’d come for him, it seemed like he was going to burst out laughing, and the spark in his eyes didn’t die even as he managed to regain control over the rest of his face. The CCTV wouldn’t know what to make of it.

Paul wondered if it was paranoid to think Marsden might be watching, though Ben’s only response was to say, “A’ight,” back and frown hard enough to kill his grin.

It was a moment for Paul to swing to his feet out of the chair, as usual, but out of respect for the police he took the whole manoeuvre a little more slowly.

* * *

Neither of them said anything, really, until they reached the street corner and began the long walk down Walford High Street, back to Albert Square. “What’s with the outfit?” Ben asked, in lieu of anything more meaningful.

Paul wondered how far away they would need to before he could offer over a hug. “Felt like a change in style,” he replied, shrugged.

Ben laughed, just a little. “I’m serious,” he said. A crowd coming out a chicken shop veered away from them slightly, and Ben turned his head to shoot them evils.

Paul thought he preferred the looks he got when he only bothered to close two buttons on his shirt. “It was something Jay said,” he told Ben, as they ambled over a side road. “I don’t think he wanted me showing you up.”

When he said it, he didn’t mean to sound despondent. It was probably watching the two WAGs for however long he’d been watching them, thinking about how your ex-con could get away with a weeping, heavyset blonde woman throwing herself into his arms, but a weeping Paul was a one-way ticket to disaster.

Immediately, though – and surprising him – Ben threw an arm around his shoulder and squeezed him close. “It ain’t 1985, you know,” he said, then stepping round in front him. His face was serious. “You ain’t gonna get beaten up while the front desk places bets. The filth… They got rules, innit. And some of ‘em are all right.” He started arranging Paul’s hoody around his shoulders, looking down between them and moving his hands around like he didn’t know what he was touching. “It’s weird seeing you like this,” he seemed to decide eventually, popping Paul’s hood up around his face as he raised his eyes. “Usually you’re more…” He scrunched up his nose, like he was searching for the word. “Fuzzy.”

Paul rolled his eyes, because it seemed obvious what _that_ meant. Ben always did have a problem with the word. “Are you sure you don’t mean ‘gay’?”

But then, what did Ben do? He just smirked and raised his eyebrows, his forehead crinkling in the dim, grainy light. “I’m pretty sure you’re always gay, Paul,” he said.

 _Well…_ If that wasn’t a come-on, then Paul wasn’t sure what it was.

The kiss was romantic enough, for a grimy Saturday night. It took a bit more encouragement than usual to get Ben to break the hard set of his jaw and let Paul in, but they got there in the end. Everything almost felt OK, and Ben’s nose was cold against his cheeks where they were flushing. The rest of the world guttered out of existence, and Paul felt nothing but relief, and calm, and the urge to find a bed.

Eventually, though, the world came back to find them: one of the cars driving past honked its horn, and Paul was left in a daze while Ben wrenched himself away to hurl abuse at it. “Come on, then!” he shouted violently, even as the car was long gone towards the traffic lights.

 _I suppose we could have had this at the station instead,_ Paul thought to himself. “Just leave it,” he muttered as he recovered his wits, dragging Ben back from the curb by his elbow.

“You turn up wherever you want, however you want, yeah?” Ben told him, turning back with anger still bright in his eyes. He promised, like it was the most important thing he was going to say that night, “You get any problems and I’ll throttle the life out of them.”

It wasn’t entirely straightforward to work out how serious he was. “I _can_ fight my own battles,” Paul tried, because even if he didn’t have a criminal record it wasn’t like he hadn’t been round the block.

“Yeah, well,” Ben replied irrationally, clapping his hands to Paul’s shoulders and looking over his head for bogeymen or something. “I don’t want you to.”

It was either really sweet or really possessive. Paul decided to settle on a mixture of both. “Come on,” he said again, not dignifying the statement with an answer as he caught Ben’s eye.

Eventually they resumed their stroll back to the Square, though it was at an even more leisurely pace as silence returned. Paul wasn’t sure how to ask about what he’d heard Ben say to Ritchie, so he didn’t.

In the end, Ben came up with his own topic of conversation. “You ever wonder what the point is?” he asked, hands in his pockets just as Paul had his in his own. “You know, of all the lying – all the pretending?” He knew Paul did, of course, which was probably why he asked the question. “I mean,” Ben continued, “I’ve known Marsden, what, years now, and sometimes I wonder what she’d do if I sat down and told her every little dodgy thing I done. She’d send me down, most likely, but after that – maybe she’d be off my back and I could get on with my life.”

“She wouldn’t just take you on your own, though, would she?” Paul commented, kicking an empty can of Triple X off the pavement and into the road. Grudgingly, he could just about accept this was the truth. “Ain’t that the whole problem?”

“Yeah,” Ben agreed, like it had been a pipe dream anyway. “It’s like a flaming house of cards. Something goes wrong; you try and protect someone; next thing you know you’re lying to someone else, finding out about something you shouldn’t – and the police ask you about something completely irrelevant and you’re stuck between lying and grassing someone up.”

“Sounds like a good excuse to go and live on an island somewhere.”

Ben just looked at him, like he’d never thought about it before. He snorted, stopping in the street. “Yeah,” he said. “Or Portugal.”

If it was a joke, it was a stretch to far. Paul had no idea what he was on about. “Portugal?” he asked.

Rolling his eyes, Ben explained. “Half my family live there,” he said. “And my gran…” He swallowed, continued, “Thought everyone just liked the sun, but I wonder if they all got to the point where they couldn’t hack it no more.”

 _Ah._ Well, it could hardly be the most terrible place in the world. Paul slung his arm through the crook of Ben’s elbow and tried to imagine them walking on a beach somewhere. Ben would probably still be wearing his t-shirt with the tabs on the sleeves, but they could maybe find him some board shorts or something. “You ever been to Turkey?” Paul asked as they strolled. “There’s about a million resorts. Gotta be loads of cars as well.”

“Yeah,” Ben replied sarcastically. “But I bet you need a visa, and I reckon I’ve pretty much had my shot of that.”

“I dunno,” Paul replied. He tried to think through the sort of people they had through in Bodrum. “I think there’s limitations, or something, but we could look it up.”

“Hmm…” was all Ben said for a little while, before he seemed to pull himself together. “Look, I can’t leave Dad, not really. And I can’t leave Jay. So don’t tempt me, all right?”

“I wasn’t trying,” Paul reminded him blandly, amused as Ben tightened his elbow around his.

* * *

When they made it back to the Square, there was still a police van parked outside Ian’s house. “What the hell are we going to do, Paul?” Ben asked as they passed by it, stopping outside the pub, which was long shut.

“There’s not much you _can_ do,” Paul told him, because as far as he could see it was the truth. “Bobby needs help, and while you all still love him he’ll get it. The only thing you’ve got to figure out is what’s the right kind.”

Grumbling, Ben planted his hands either side of Paul’s face and smacked one single Godfather kiss on his mouth. “You _are_ gonna show me up,” he said, stepping back. “You keep being this clever.”

Paul smiled, despite himself. “No chance,” he said, because in his heart of hearts he figured they were just as stupid as each other.

“Text me when you’re in, yeah?” Ben offered as a goodbye, walking away with a smirk quirking at the corner of his mouth.

“Yeah,” Paul replied, watching him go.

He made it to the corner, before Paul remembered the other thing.

“Oh, hang on,” he called after Ben, making him turn in the road. “I might’ve…” He winced, thinking back on it. “I might’ve had a go at your dad?”

In the end, of course, the look on Ben’s face was worth it.

.


End file.
